Staff Reporter:
A US fighter jet was shot down over Iran and a search and rescue operation was underway for any survivors, a US official told Reuters on Friday, in the first such known incident since the US launched its war with Iran on 28 February.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not offer further details. CNN claimed the jet was likely an F-15, and Iranian state media reported fighting had already broken out between US and Iranian ground forces amid a US rescue operation for crew.
The prospect of US pilots being alive and on the run inside Iran during an ongoing conflict greatly raises the stakes for the United States in the conflict. Iranian officials called on civilians to be on the lookout for survivors.
If Tehran can capture the American pilots, this would be the first time that the Iranians will have American prisoners of war during the conflict.
Iran is saying airdrop operations have been carried out, and intense clashes are ensuing between US forces and Iranian ground forces, resulting in casualties among the invading forces, Al Jazeera reported.
The governor of Iran’s Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province said whomever captured or killed the crew “would be specially commended,” according to the semi-official Iranian news agency ISNA.
Iranian television has also announced that they are offering 10 billion tomans ($64,102) for anyone who can find the pilots
Iranian state media released photos on Friday of what it claimed was the wreckage of a US fighter jet, showing small pieces of what appears to be an F-15. The photos show a partial logo for “US Air Forces in Europe” on a F-15 tail fin and red-and-white striping from the top of the tail fin.
Another piece of wreckage – with the words “CAUTION USE ONLY NON-MAGNETIC FASTENERS” – appears to match a rear portion of an F-15 that extends between one of its two engines and its horizontal stabilizer.
“From the structure it certainly looks like an F-15, and from the tail flash stripe markings, from the 48th Fighter Wing, based at RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom,” Peter Layton, a fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute and former Royal Australian Air Force officer, told CNN.
